I'm not 100% sure this is actually word-for-word, but alas. "In a presentation at Ubuntu Developer Summit currently going on in Denmark, Drew Bliss from Valve said that Linux is more viable than Windows 8 for gaming. Windows 8 ships with its own app store and it is moving away from an open platform model." I feel like a broken record by now but here we go again: keep an eye on Valve, even if you're not into games. This is the company pushing NVIDIA and AMD to improve their Linux support, with enough clout and name to actually get stuff done. Valve doesn't mess around.

You're buying too much into Gabe's bullshit as if he is some sort of holy and honest defender of gaming territory. He's a defender of his own territory. The bottom line is this: Microsoft is not going to abandon the Win32 gaming market. To do, you have to make the following assumptions:

1) That Microsoft is willing throw away all of their backwards compatibility that they worked so hard to preserve the past few decades.

2) That Microsoft even WANTS to get rid of the desktop. Office 2013 runs on the desktop and do you honestly believe Office 2013 will be incompatible with Windows 9?

3) That Microsoft even CAN get rid of the desktop. As mentioned earlier, WinRT is built directly on top of Win32. The recently released .NET Framework 4.5 sits atop Win32 *AND* the desktop APIs.

In the past, Microsoft has taken many initiatives that developers did not agree with. With the .NET Framework, they wanted a world of managed code. Did they get it? Nope, just about every single game is still running on Win32. They wanted games on Windows 3.0 back in 1990. Did they get it? Nope, game devs continued making games for DOS until DirectX 6 and 7 came out, a whopping 8 years later.

Microsoft won't abandon the Windows desktop until everybody else does. Why? Because they can't. And why would they? Windows 8 has brought many improvements to the desktop, who's to stay Windows 9 won't bring even more? Sure, they focused heavily on touch this time around but that is because that is what they needed the most. Hell - do you think Gabe will?

Let's make this very clear: Gabe is not running from Windows 8 because of its deficiencies as a gaming platform, he's running from it because its strengths as one. If Microsoft improves the Metro UI, improves the Store policies, and improves their Xbox Live initiatives such to the point that it becomes an excellent gaming platform, it will kill Valve's position as an online publisher.

Imagine further in Windows 9 that the Windows Store comes to the desktop, further solidifying the staying of power of the desktop, yet retaining compatibility with all previous software built for Windows.